Sretensky Monastery (Moscow)

View of the monastery from Lubyanka Street in 1882 (compare modern view).

Sretensky Monastery (Russian: Сретенский монастырь) is a monastery in Moscow, founded by Grand PrinceVasili I in 1397. It used to be located close to the present-day Red Square, but in the early 16th century it was moved northeast to what is now Bolshaya Lubyanka Street. The Sretensky Monastery gave its name to adjacent streets and byways, namely Sretenka Street, Sretensky Boulevard, Sretensky Lane, Sretensky Deadend, and Sretensky Gates Square.

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Unlike most other Russian Orthodox churches of the same name the monastery is not, as might be expected, named after one of the twelve Great Feasts of Russian Orthodox ChurchSretenie Gospodne (Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple), with Sretenie being a Church Slavonic word for "meeting".

The origin of the monastery's name comes from the fact that it was built on the spot where the muscovites and the ruling Prince had met the icon of Our Lady of Vladimir on August 26, 1395, moved from Vladimir to Moscow to protect the capital from the imminent invasion of Tamerlane. Soon thereafter, the armies of Tamerlane retreated and the grateful monarch founded the monastery to commemorate the miracle. In 1552, the Muscovites gathered at the walls of the monastery to meet the Russian army returning after the conquest of Kazan.

In 1925, the monastery was closed down. In 1928-1930, most of its buildings were dismantled by the Soviets, including the Church of Mary of Egypt (14th-16th century) and Church of Saint Nicholas (16th century). Only the Cathedral of the Meeting of the Icon of Our Lady of Vladimir (собор Сретения Владимирской иконы Богоматери) with a side chapel to the Nativity of John the Forerunner (built in 1679 by the order of tsarFyodor Alexeyevich) survived to this day.

Services in the Vladimirsky Cathedral resumed in 1991. The cathedral was transferred to the authority of the Pskovo-Pechorsky Monastery in 1994, but nowadays it is a separate monastic establishment, with Patriarch Alexy II as its archimandrite.

On 13 November, a Moscow city committee that oversees construction on heritage sites approved the construction of a new cathedral on the grounds of the Sretensky Monastery. The cathedral is due to be completed by 2017, in time for the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution when attacks on the Russian Orthodox Church began. Architectural preservationists fear that the plans will destroy other historic buildings on the site, irrevocably alter the surrounding cityscape.[1]